By the time Agnes O’Dea joined Memorial University in 1952, she had already broken new ground.

Twenty years earlier, she had become the first professional librarian in Newfoundland and had helped establish the island’s first public library. She had also begun work on a bibliography of, in her words, “everything ever published in Newfoundland, about Newfoundland and written by Newfoundlanders.”

In 1955, as a reference librarian at Memorial, O’Dea’s vision of a comprehensive Newfoundland bibliography coincided with the needs of the university when she was asked to identify and catalogue the printed records of Newfoundland. This bibliography would be an essential tool for scholarship.

But creating it was no small task.

Many of the research resources we take for granted today did not exist in 1955. And the Great Fire of 1892 had destroyed many of the copies of publications and physical resources O’Dea would need to complete the project.

She would have to build her bibliography from the ground up, through rigorous scholarship and a good deal of detective work.

It was the kind of task O’Dea once described as work “done in solitude, in quest of the elusive.”

With her bibliography well underway, O’Dea was given a second mandate. In 1965, she was asked to establish a Newfoundland collection at the Memorial University Library.

So she created the Centre for Newfoundland Studies.

At the time, the university library held a mere 40 books related to Newfoundland. Within 10 years, with O’Dea at the helm, the CNS expanded to contain 20,000 volumes.

Now, the CNS contains over 93, 000 volumes.

 

Agnes O’Dea received the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Memorial University in 1987. Photo from Memorial University Archives.

 

Dr. O’Dea completed her monumental bibliography in 1976 and retired from Memorial that year. Anne Alexander edited the work and prepared it for publication.

In 1986, the Bibliography of Newfoundland was published in two hefty volumes.

What had once been elusive was now found and made available to us all.

In 1994, a stained-glass wall by artist Graham Howcroft, entitled The Voyage, was installed in the CNS and dedicated to Dr. Agnes O’Dea. The installation was commissioned and funded by Fabian and John O’Dea to honour their sister’s life work.

The Voyage resembles a nautical compass, a tool for finding one’s bearings. Every day, scholars find their bearings through the resources at the CNS. And they can do so thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Dr. O’Dea, who charted the way.